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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28438338">gold button</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/listentokels/pseuds/listentokels'>listentokels</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Hopeful Ending, M/M, Oikawa Tooru-centric, Pining, slight angst, snapshot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:55:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,121</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28438338</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/listentokels/pseuds/listentokels</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years after graduating from high school and taking off to the other side of the world, Oikawa receives a padded envelope in his fan mail with no return address, postmarked from Tokyo. Inside is a single gold button.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kageyama Tobio/Oikawa Tooru</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>197</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>gold button</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>second button: not really practiced much outside of anime/dramas/movies nowadays, but the second button of a school uniform is usually given by a male graduate as a confession. there are a few theories as to why this is, one of them being that it's the closest to one's heart and the recipient is the most precious person to the gifter.</p><p>third button: the theory here is that every button means something, and the third one means best friend</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Here,” his manager says, dropping a stack of letters and packages held together by rubber bands on the bench beside him before moving onto another teammate.</p><p>“You sure get a lot of fanmail,” Santiago comments with a smirk, as he pulls on a fresh t-shirt. “Too bad they don’t see how annoying you are.”</p><p>Oikawa chuckles, rolling up the cuff of his jeans and slipping his sandals on. “They only need to see what I want them to see, San-San. Catch you later,” he says, before grabbing the stack of mail and heading out of the locker room to make his way home.</p><p>Inside his apartment, he throws the mail on his dining room table before walking into his kitchen to grab a glass of water. He goes about his routine before he settles down to look through the bundle. Santiago is right that he gets mail all the time. It’s almost a weekly occurrence now to sort through all of it to see what’s worth looking at.</p><p>He wrinkles his nose as he catches a whiff of a heavily perfumed letter, and notes that it’ll be going straight into the trash as soon as he comes across it. He doesn’t want to read something that’ll give him a headache before he even has a chance to process the words. The words usually aren’t worth it.</p><p>When he has three stacks in front of him— ones for the trash, ones that are bulky and most likely containing gifts, and ones with standard letter or card-sized envelopes— he starts opening them up.</p><p>Reading the letters goes quickly. They almost always say the same thing— “I want to be a setter like you someday” or “You looked amazing in the team Calvin Klein ad”. He makes a new pile for anyone with autograph requests to give to his manager tomorrow. They send pre-prepared photo cards so he doesn’t have to sign something new every week.</p><p>When he moves on to the bulkier envelopes and packages, one of them immediately catches his eye. It’s postmarked from Japan, with Tokyo listed as the origin city. He pulls it out from the pile, turning it over in his hands to see if there’s a return address. There isn’t.</p><p>Iwaizumi had told him that there were rumors of his whereabouts, but he hasn’t had a chance to make a name for himself internationally yet. It takes two years to become a citizen, and he’s just a few weeks shy now. He already has the paperwork ready. With all that said, getting fan mail from someone in Japan is a rarity.</p><p>The envelope is small and padded, the kind with bubble wrap that Oikawa likes to keep so he can pop them between his fingers while he’s idling in front of the TV after a long day. His fan mail address is on the front in an unfamiliar script, the lines unsteady, likely written by someone who isn’t used to writing with the roman alphabet. There’s a bump in the corner, what seems to be a small object or trinket of some sort inside. Curiously, he tears open the envelope.</p><p>A button falls out onto the table with a quiet clatter, shiny and gold.</p><p>Pressing on the outside edges of the envelope to widen the torn opening, he peers inside. There’s nothing else, not even a note.</p><p>Oikawa sets the empty envelope down before picking the button up to examine it. It’s embossed with a familiar looking emblem, but he can’t figure out where he’s seen it before. He doesn’t know anyone in Tokyo, especially not someone who would send him the second button on their uniform.</p><p>It’s a silly tradition, popularized by dramas, anime, and the like. Oikawa himself hadn’t partaken in it, even though he’d noticed the lingering stares from the female students of Seijoh as he stood amongst the cherry blossoms taking selfies with his fellow volleyball club third years.</p><p>He had given Iwaizumi his third button though, as a joke, before leaving Japan. Not that the sentiment behind it isn’t true whether the theory itself is real or not.</p><p>It’s April now, less than a month after graduation in Japan and autumn in Argentina. The air is cool enough that Oikawa has all the windows open. He can see the fiery leaves of the tree by his apartment from where he’s sitting, rustling every time a light breeze flutters through it. It’s beautiful, in hues of yellow, orange, and red. Not quite as red as a Japanese maple, but still vibrant anyway. It’s nowhere near the same as cherry blossoms.</p><p>The button in the palm of his hand has traveled thousands of kilometers from home to a place where even the seasons are different, just like him. He clutches at it, wondering if this is where it belongs.</p><p>He runs his fingers across the grooves and ridges of the button's surface. There’s only one person that comes to mind, of all those who graduated this year, that Oikawa wants a button from. </p><p>Their relationship has never been anything other than contentious, but even with every challenge, every biting word, every acrid moment in their shared history, Oikawa remembers more strongly than anything, an eager shadow with bright blue eyes. He remembers a soft smile, and an innocent, earnest request to learn. He remembers the look of subtle joy at being able to touch the ball during a match. These memories are burned into his mind so hot and bright, that they jump into his thoughts unbidden sometimes, even when he’s doing something unrelated and mundane.</p><p>In Oikawa’s second year of high school, he went to watch Kitagawa play with the excuse of scouting for new members. There, he saw a boy on a bench, looking like the world had turned against him. Something had happened after Oikawa left middle school, left him, that took the brightness and innocence from those ocean blue eyes. </p><p>Looking into them the next year, Oikawa hated the sight of them. Hated how guarded they’d become. Hated that the only time he caught a glimpse of the familiar brightness was when they were looking at someone else.</p><p>He stands, walks over to his kitchen, and drops the button into a drawer of items he rarely needs, shutting it close. Miyagi is five hundred kilometers from Tokyo and about seventeen thousand kilometers out of Oikawa’s reach. </p><p>He walks away from it. Forgets about it. Moves on with his life.</p><p>When the Schweiden Adlers announce their new setter a few weeks later, Oikawa returns to the drawer, pulls out his phone, and types “Karasuno High School emblem” into the search bar. He turns the button over in his palm.</p><p>It’s a match.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Just a little thought I had, since Oikage lives rent-free in my mind.</p><p>Anyone who might have reread this, I did make a minor edit because I had a timeline discrepancy.</p><p>Feel free to come chat with me at <a href="https://www.twitter.com/mmshokupan">@mmshokupan</a> on Twitter.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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